China
China is a sovereign state in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion. The PRC is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party, with its seat of government in the capital city of Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau), while claiming sovereignty over Taiwan. Geography, Climate, and Environment Air Quality After decades of unbridled economic growth, China's leadership vowed to crack down on severe levels of air, water, and soil pollution, including the heavy smog that often blanketed major cities. The Chinese government set up a nationwide network of sensors, and published data online. The Beijing city government issued its first "red alert" on December 7, 2015 over its air pollution; the air was so polluted that breathing it did as much damage to the lungs as smoking 40 cigarettes a day. On December 18, China warned residents across a large part of its north to prepare for a second wave of choking smog arriving over the weekend, with visibility in the worst affected areas, such as Beijing, likely to fall to less than half a mile. The second alert came after a landmark climate agreement was reached in Paris earlier in December, setting a course to move away from a fossil fuel-driven economy within decades in a bid to arrest global warming. Land Quality Social Demographics Government and Politics China granted Macau control over its surrounding sea for the first time on December 17, 2015 to help boost its economic development, more than tripling the size of the former Portuguese colony's territory. It gave access to mainland vessels to use Macau's waters. The space-starved island stepped up its role in national policy. Foreign Affairs North Korea China has been North Korea's main economic and diplomatic backer, but tensions were strained in February 2013 when Kim ordered the country's third nuclear test. Several subsequent rounds of saber rattling by North Korea towards South Korea and the United States tested China's patience. China had tried to act as an honest broker between the United States and North Korea, repeatedly attempting to get the rivals to cool their rhetoric. As an example, in mid-December 2015, Chinese authorities canceled a North Korean all-female pop group's Beijing concert on the grounds of anti-American lyrics. The North Korean side protested and returned home after directly consulting Kim. South China Sea China laid claim to almost all of the energy-rich waters of the sea, through which more than $5 trillion of maritime trade passes every year, amid overlapping claims by the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Taiwan. In the fall of 2015, U.S. B-52 bombers flew near some of the artificial islands and sailed within 12 nautical miles of one of them, with China expressing concern at the U.S.'s militarization of the region. In mid-December 2015, China's military carried out war games, with warships, submarines, and fighter jets simulating cruise missile strikes on ships. The move escalated warnings of an arms race in the disputed region, as nations became increasingly tempted to use military force to settle territorial spats. China's first landing of a plane on one of its new island runways in the Sea on January 2, 2016 demonstrated Beijing's facilities in the disputed region being completed on schedule. Law Enforcement and Crime Foreign Cooperation U.S. and Canadian officials pledged to work with China to track down and repatriate Chinese fugitives living abroad, but that cooperation proved to have clear limits, as only one person on Operation Sky Net's list of the 100 most wanted fugitives had been returned to China from either country in 2015. Economy China The nation accounted for more than 10% of global trade and remained in 2015 the single biggest contributor to global growth. In August 2015, concerns that China's economy was slowing faster than expected, uncertainty over the U.S. Federal Reserve raising interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade, and the effect of exceedingly cheap oil, sent ripples around the world as Chinese stocks tumbled. This financial market selloff caused the Fed to stay its hand when it considered the rate hike in September. When the Fed raised interest rates and removed one major source of uncertainty in December 2015, the world's central banks scrambled to assess the risk that the slowing China posed to their economies, especially with flawed internal data. The Fed's rise in interest rates showed confidence in the world's largest economy, but China struggled for a foothold with rate cuts. Moreover, an unnerving combination of global economic concerns and escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran in the Middle East by January 4, 2016 kept pressure on commodity prices while bolstering safe-haven sovereign bonds. Hong Kong Banks in Hong Kong intensified the battle for young customers key to their future retail profit, offering online perks and mobile banking products in a bid to erode the dominance of HSBC, a British banking company, in its Asian stronghold. Macau The world's largest casino hub faced slumping gaming revenues and the worst economic growth in 2015, inducing China to put pressure on the island - home to 37 casinos - to diversify away from an industry that brings in over 80% of government revenue. Casino operators responded by building more non-gaming amenities, such as Melco Crown's Studio City resort; however, with falling revenue, the Australian billionaire James Packer quit the board of Crown Resorts in mid-December 2015. With gambling revenue plummeting for the last 18 months, China granted Macau control over its surrounding sea for the first time in decades on December 17, 2015. Culture Infrastructure On December 20, 2015, a landslide triggered by the build-up of waste construction mud near an industrial park buried 33 buildings and led to over 91 people missing. A nearby section of China's major West-East natural gas pipeline also exploded. Premier Li Keqiang ordered an official investigation into the disaster in the southern city of Shenzhen, coming four months after huge chemical blasts at the northern port of Tianjin killed more than 160 people, which occurred on August 13, 2015. Besides new buildings, a network of subway lines were being built in Shenzhen as well, as large volumes of earth were excavated and dumped at unsafe waste sites. The frequency of industrial accidents in China raised questions about safety standards, following three decades of breakneck economic growth.